DAY TEN The weather report said rain and as I found out shortly after we left, my usual scientific way of checking the weather doesn't seem to work in Scotland. The first stage of looking up and seeing if there is wet stuff falling is null and void becuase the rain comes at you horizontally. The second stage of lloking for cows lying down is null and void because Cows in Scotland are proper hard nuts, they don't do lying down whatever the weather. Apparantly amongst the cow community in Scotland lying down is for wimps. Nevertheless, it was raining.

We left Gretna and travelled through the outskirts of Annan, around the Solway Firth following what is known at the Robert Burns trail, suprisingly not many other people were following this trail on such a lovely day!?!? This took us through a village called Dornock, there is a lot of mileage to be have with that, so i'll give you the opportunity to make up your own jokes.

I decided that we should play a game and on the odd occasion that a car came in the opposite direction, you had to wave at them and see how many consecutive waves in return you could get. I got to 10, before a grumpy old bloke who looked like Santa refused to wave. So Pinhead had 10 to beat. He fell at the 3rd time of asking, when driving Miss Daisy approached in her Nissan Micra with her hands glued at the the ten to two position.

The scenery might have been nice and I am sure it is on a sunny day, but visibility was so poor, no photo opportunities arose, which is a shame. We did see our second Chinook of the trip so far.

I swear that the livestock were looking at us more than usual today and you could see it in their eyes, they were thinking 'what the bloody hell are you two doing out on bikes in this weather'.

We cycled into the centre of Dunfries, where the rain abated enough for us to stop and get a quick cup of tea from the Burns Cafe.

After Dumfries, we followed B roads that run parallel with the A76 towards Kilmarnock, we passed through a town called Dunscore, that proudly stated it was a fairtrade town, but we all know it was not the world's first!

We managed to cause three cattle stampedes, the first two were stampedes towards us, as the cows must have throught we were going to feed them. The 3rd one was along a fence line as we spooked them which in turn scared the life out of me as they ran beside us for 50 yards or so.

We also managed to have a race with about a dozen Grouse. Now these birds can fly, but they decided to all just run in front of us and then slowly one by one disappear into the hedgerow. It was very comical to see and all that was missing was the Benny Hill music.

The last 12k was on the A76 and this is where I have to make an announcement. Some people may think it is a cold way of doing this and I should speak to my wife face to face about this. But I have to announce that I have another love in my life..... it is newly laid smooth tarmac! We had this continously for about 5k and it was the nicest 5k of cycling that we have had all journey, this soon changed back to the boneshaker-pot holed roads that we have been used to, but for 5k it was cycling bliss, well it would have been if you had removed the headwind and the horizontal rain.

The last couple of kms were painful, firtsly because my knee is still playing up and secondly because the the wind and rain increased 4 fold. We are staying in a B&B in Kirkonnel which is about 20 miles south of Kilmarnock and 5 miles North of a small town called Sanquhar. I thought it might be pronounced San-Que-Har or maybe San-Kwa, but apparantly it is pronounced San-Ker. So if I was trying to explain to somebody how to pronounce it, I need to think of a word that rhymes with San-Ker. I for the life of me can't think of one.!

But we were given a very warm welcome from Jenny at our B&B. Pot of tea, cycling shoes put in front of the coal stove and all of our wet stuff put in the wash. Plus a Roast Beef dinner and Apple Strudle & custard for dessert.

Road Kill count: Hedgehog 1, Rabbit 4, Pheasant/Partridge/Grouse 5, UA's 4

Distance covered today 99.9kms (64 miles). Climbing 505m (1656 feet)

Total to date: Distance 1106.15 kms (688.6 miles). Elevation 11197m (36735 feet)

Bye for now

Fathead

 


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